2009 has got off to a good start. The Hamas infestation in Gaza is being dealt with and now comes the welcome news that Coalition forces in Afghanistan have killed more than 30 terrorists after they were attacked by a large force during a raid on a Taliban roadside bomb cell, the US military has said.

During the battle in the Alishang district of Laghman province, 65 miles north east of the capital Kabul, 32 fighters were killed, including one female and one militant was taken prisoner. “During the operation, as many as 75 armed militants exited their compounds and attempted to converge on the force,” a US spokesman said.

That’s disappointing – the one prisoner being taken, I mean.

No doubt the Human Rights crack brigade will be already starting the campaign to set him free.

Interesting to read that the top hierarchy of al-Qaeda has taken such a hit from US missile strikes that Osama bin Laden and his deputy have had to replace people in the terrorist organisation with men they have never met, according to Western intelligence sources.

A dozen of al-Qaeda’s “senior management” have been killed by Predator drone attacks, which have been so effective in locating their targets that the militant group has been forced to move from traditional outdoor training camps to classroom-style facilities that are hidden from view. After the success of the new weapons, which are unmanned and operate by remote control from 15,000 feet, the United States is to step up its drone attacks. On January 1 Hellfire missiles, operated from an air force base in Nevada, hit targets in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, close to Afghanistan, and yesterday two missiles slammed into the stronghold where Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taleban leader, is believed to live. The killings have had a huge impact on the structure, organisation and effectiveness of al-Qaeda, limiting the capacity for commanders to liaise with each other, further separating the top command from the lower ranks and introducing a high degree of uncertainty and a constant awareness of the likelihood of death lurking in the skies.

This is smart tech at its best, wiping out Al Queda scum whilst ensuring US lives are not put at un-necessary risk.

“Make love, not war” has been replaced with make war with love.

“Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people – whether it’s building a school or handing out Viagra,” one veteran CIA officer told The Washington Post. According to the newspaper, pills to boost the libidos of Afghan tribal patriarchs are the latest in a long line of inducements including medicine or operations for family, toys and school equipment, tooth extractions and visas. In one case, a warlord aged 60 who was struggling to satisfy his four younger wives was also holding back information that could be crucial to American interests. A clandestine CIA operatives who was visiting sensed an opportunity and reached into his bag for a small gift of four blue pills. “Take one of these,” he said. “You’ll love it.” Four days later, the CIA man returned to a beaming warlord – whether there were any smiles form his wives was not reported. The warlord furnished the CIA with invaluable details of Taliban supply routes and movements before requesting more pills.”

Mmm….some of the CIA schemes do worry me. It’s all very well to bribe these tribal leaders but their loyalty will last just as long as the next Viagra tablet, and what if Bin Laden and his co-horts up the ante and bribe them with TWO viagra tablets? War is a dirty game and in the final analysis it is fair enough that we do all that is necessary to win. But I can’t help but feel that the CIA tends to get carried away in some of these well-intentioned but perhaps somewhat..ahem..non-sustainable  endeavours!

The first item on the news this morning said it all, as far as this observer reasons. Four more young Royal Marines, prime examples of British youth have been sacrificed upon the rather tawdry altar of political expedience, of the shameful and ludicrous idea of ‘Democracy’ in Afghanistan; of the continued propping up of an Afghan government composed of heroin-growing warlords, failed Islamic fundamentalists and of a President whose so-called security forces control less than one tenth of the country he is supposed to be governing.

One of the Marines died in a road-side bombing of an ‘Jackal’ armoured vehicle. The fact that the Jackal is known within the British Armed Forces as the ‘Faster Coffin’, as opposed to the ‘Snatch Land Rover’ which has been awarded the title ‘The Slow Coffin’ is but just one of the drawbacks of service within the British Armed forces’ contribution to the debacle in Afghanistan. The succession of totally useless methods of transport chosen by our cost- and politically-obsessed Ministry of Defence is but one of the factors in the true outcome of our totally silly and useless response to the Afghanistan crisis. The other three Marines died when approached by a youngster pushing a wheelbarrow, which then exploded, killing all three. It has been suggested that the bomb was detonated by remote control, and the boy was an innocent victim as well! That does not matter, the Marines shouldn’t have been there! Those wasted lives, piled upon the pyres of a failed ideal, represent yet another paragraph in the death toll of Western involvement in that savage place.

We, along with the rest of the NATO forces should immediately withdraw from Afghanistan, and let that craven bunch of Islamic nit-wits bow down under their favourite fundamentalist governors, but with the firm promise that if there were any more attempts to export their ideals, a short session of Neutron Bombs would settle their places in paradise once and for all!

I’m with the view of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he states that Britain’s military commander and ambassador in Afghanistan are being
“defeatist” by thinking the war cannot be won.

The comments by the officials from Britain, a key ally to the United
States in Afghanistan and Iraq, were echoed by the top United Nations
official in Kabul, who said success was only possible through dialogue
and other political efforts. After the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 to oust the
fundamentalist Taliban government in the wake of the September 11
attacks on the United States, security has deteriorated markedly over
the past two years. “While we face significant challenges in Afghanistan, there
certainly is no reason to be defeatist or to underestimate the
opportunities to be successful in the long run,” Gates said on Monday
on his way to Europe to meet defense ministers.

But the soft power mentality of the UN rejects the concept of military based victory. It believes that dialogue is the ONLY way to achieve peace and as we see in places like Sudan and Rwanda, that really works, right? The British military at senior level have also been infected by this defeatist contagion, which plays well in the spineless UK media. (The same media which many decades ago urged peace talks with Mr Hitler)

Of course not all British leaders have been so gutless as the current bunch and so I offer you the words of a man who is looked upon by many as THE greatest ever Briton….Sir Winston Churchill on war….

“You ask, what is our policy? I
can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might
and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a
monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of
human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer
in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of
all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without
victory, there is no survival.”

How pathetic to read that Britain’s most senior military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the
war against the Taliban cannot be won.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said
the British public should not expect a “decisive military victory” but
should be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban. His assessment followed the leaking of a memo from a French diplomat who
claimed that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador in Kabul, had
told him the current strategy was “doomed to fail”. Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed
its second tour of Afghanistan, said it was necessary to “lower our
expectations”. He said: “We’re not going to win this war.”

I agree. With people like him in charge, how could we?

“The most successful hunters are not the ones who bag something every time, but the ones who hunt all the time, and 2 Para has been hunting the most dangerous prey.  The soldiers of C-co 2 Para are not sure how many they’ve killed in the past five months, but the estimates are around 200, and during the days I spent with them, their average daily kill would put them well over that number.”

These guys could use your support, Support Our Soldiers sends care packages to the British men serving abroad, send them a donation and make a soldier’s life a little bit easier.

I’ve got a deeply sentimental soft spot and the highest regard for people who serve their country in times of war, especially the men who front the battle lines. I may start doing a post a week on the soldiers who deserve our recognition and respect for their willingness to lay their lives on the line to serve the us and our nations.

The Taliban’s eagerness to embrace ignorance will doom them eventually, but how many of us will they kill first?  They are a relic of the beasts in our nature.

….Michael Yon, Death In The Corn

If we held the intent of the beasts that we keep
In far fields and dark valleys, in the pale light of sleep,
In marked shards of clay, in papyrus and parchment,
Beneath the brick hearth, in the marks on old bones,
In the marrow of bones, in the plowing of stones
Parting sand furrows where our dreams are pale sparks
In the roots of our nerves, sprouting to thoughts,
To the tee-shirt philosophies of cheap magazines,
And the afternoon shows of electronic dreams,
That drown our blank selves now dredged up from sleep.

We would know then this life takes place in one day,
That the beasts which we keep are the beasts of our sleep,
Created from dust in the long dusk of God,
That we know the intent of the beasts which we keep.

Van der Leun

Three Cheers from this side of the Atlantic Ocean for young Prince Harry who has been secretly serving in Afghanistan for the last ten weeks.  I would hope that one does not have to agree with the war in Afghanistan to admire the participation of a member of the British Royal Family in the actual conflict.  As an alleged Plastic Paddy I generally feel that royalty can go the way of the butter churn and Model T Ford, but you’ve got to admire the true grit of a young man who isn’t hiding in a life of privilege.   Jimmy McCain, John McCain’s youngest son served in Iraq with the United States Marines, but even he doesn’t present the enemy with the propoganda target that a member of the Royal Family does.  Well done Harry.

On a side note, I saw a photograph of him with some British Army Gurka regiment troops.  History is quite a long road.        

This is a bizarre tale concerning a twelve year old Afghan boy, trained to be a suicide bomber, who attends a school in….West Yorkshire! It’s all a bit sad really. Apparently what happened was that the British Army (rightly) killed the boy’s Taliban terrorist father during a firefight. He was then encouraged to become a suicide bomber and kill British troops (by tribal "elders"!) but he lost his nerve and told his mother and he was smuggled across the world to the country which has no borders – the United Kingdom. He then got into a local school and there is now uproar. Some people are concerned that he might fall under the influence of British Al Queda sympathisers who could then use him as their very own mini-human bomb. You have to feel sorry for the  child but in all honesty he should NOT be in this country. This story is one more example of our complete lack of border security.